[Contents] [Newsletter Index] [LSS] [LMU home page]

Newsletter 14, March 1997 Comments and Questions Answered

• Library Services
• Computing Services

Library Services

Why does the Library have no power to retrieve long-overdue books? I have been waiting for a book due back weeks ago. This really is not fair.

We agree that it is not fair, but unfortunately some users are inconsiderate and, despite heavy fines and recall letters, they still do not return their books on time. We do spend a lot of staff time seeking the return of overdue items. Those who do not return overdue books are not only liable to fines, but can be invoiced for the cost of replacements plus an administrative charge of £10.

Adapting the height of the photocopier on the 5th floor of the Calverley Street Library is an excellent idea. But how will wheelchair users be able to use it since the lift does not stop there?

Photocopiers are located on the 3rd and 5th floors only and we are aware that this causes problems for wheelchair users. However, Library staff are able to control the lift and stop it at the 5th floor, and will do so willingly for any user who requires assistance.

Can something be done about the photocopiers? They are hardly ever working and sometimes they all out of order.

The photocopiers in the libraries are very heavily used. They are checked regularly and replenished regularly. We do deal with paper jams, but need to be informed if there is a problem. Faulty copiers are reported immediately to the maintenance firm who aim to respond within 24 hours. Repro Assistants have recently been employed at Calverley Street and Beckett Park to check the copiers several times each day and replenish them. New copiers, which should be more reliable, were installed in January.

Why are daily newspapers no longer available at Beckett Park?

Daily newspapers were so badly mutilated at the end of the day that they were useless for future consultation and reference. We now keep the current day’s newspaper behind the Library Counter. The previous two weeks are to be kept on the mezzanine floor. Back-runs of most of the major daily newspapers are also available at the Leeds Central Library in Calverley Street, and most can now be consulted on the WWW.

Why are there not more computer catalogues within the Beckett Park Learning Centre?

We have increased the number of computer catalogues, particularly on the first floor. More catalogues will be made available on the ground floor as soon as increased capacity is available from our present file-server. The catalogue can also be accessed from any networked terminal within the PC labs or elsewhere within the University.

Why does the Library Counter at Beckett Park close at 8pm? This is inconvenient for those readers needing it after evening lectures.

Opening hours have been extended this year in the Learning Centre and we are now open from 8:30 in the morning until 9:15 in the evening from Monday to Thursday. However, we are not able to provide a full service after 8pm as we do not have the staffing resources to do so. Statistics from previous years had shown that the least use of the counter services was made between 8pm and 9pm so the decision was taken to withdraw the full service for the final hour of opening.

These opening hours are being offered on a trial basis and the reactions of users are being monitored. So thank you for your comments — they’ll feed into a decision about opening hours for next year.

The new entrance to the IT laboratories makes the Library at Beckett Park a noisier, dirtier place. The atmosphere of the Library is spoilt and access to the IT laboratories is more difficult.

The facilities in the Beckett Park Learning Centre have been considerably enhanced. However, the new combined entrance is generating a lot of noise and dirt and this has adversely affected the atmosphere of the study environment. We are actively looking at ways of alleviating the problem whilst maintaining the benefits of integrating more fully the various Learning Support Services available through the Learning Centre.

Why is the Art section of the library at Calverley Street so muddled, making it difficult to locate specific books?

All books and journals are tidied regularly by the library assistants. In fact, assistants are assigned particular shelves to sort. However, in practice, this is an almost impossible task as books are regularly left by users piled high on tables and not returned to the shelves or trolleys. As assistants have numerous other duties, they can only tackle the problem in the time allocated for shelf tidying. We do appreciate and acknowledge your concern and we aim to improve the situation, but, in the short term, we are unlikely to have the increase in staffing which will enable us to fully rectify the problem.

Could you provide areas of the Calverley Street Library where there is a strict silence rule?

Silent areas are dependent on users respecting the rule and staff being able to control the noise. Ultimately, we would like to be able to make such provision but, in the meantime, we have made changes in the library layout which we hope will encourage a quieter study environment. These include the provision of single study tables and carrels and additional divided tables. Three bookable group study rooms are available for group work, and library tutorial rooms can be used if not already booked (check at the Library Enquiry Desk). Users are encouraged to report any disturbance caused by noise to the Library Enquiry Desk so that we can take remedial action.

Why does the Beckett Park Learning Centre have no quiet study areas?

Certain areas of the Learning Centre are designated as quiet study areas. These are the Bound Journals Area, the 1st-floor study area and, to a lesser extent, the ground-floor study area. We have some of the best provision of group study rooms for discussion work of any equivalent development in the country. We ask students who need to work in groups to book these rooms.

Strenuous efforts are made by staff to maintain a quiet study environment in other areas. We patrol as often as staff resources allow, and make announcements on the tannoy system reminding students to observe the rules regarding quiet study. Any complaints from other students about noise are dealt with immediately.

We will continue to do our best to keep the noise to acceptable levels. If the situation does not improve, we will report persistent offenders to course leaders and pursue disciplinary action where appropriate.

Computing Services

Printing in the IT labs would be quicker and queues smaller if users did not have to go through the time-consuming process each time of logging on to the network, logging on to Windows, and eventually logging in to the application.

Unfortunately, for various reasons the new equipment for Beckett Park — 137 new PCs, 8 new printers, and new chips for the revised printing system — were only delivered one week before the start of term. This meant that the printing stations were set up in a bit of a hurry, and had the standard laboratory setup installed. Ideally, this system would never have run live, but we just ran out of time to change it before the start of term.

The Beckett Park printing service now mirrors those in place at Calverley Street and Brunswick Terrace: print-station PCs log in under a unique userid and password, which are the only ones allowed on these systems, and run a reduced version of the standard software. This means that the PCs are logged in all the time, making the system run much more efficiently. Users at these laser stations are unable to save their work if they want to make any changes and this, we hope, will stop people sitting at a laser station all day.

Meanwhile, we have thrown away the bought-in networked software that we were using last year and which caused many problems. We are writing our own instead, which will once again allow users to fire prints off from their own PCs. This is obviously a much better solution, and hopefully our version will be more robust than the previous one. As we do not like to change software mid-year, we hope to install it for next academic year.

Are there plans to let students access staff email addresses, i.e. If we want to look up a staff email address?

At the moment there are no plans for a staff look-up table to be placed on the PINE student email system. We were asked specifically by the lecturers to restrict access in order to cut down on unsolicited mail. However, if you speak to your lecturer personally, I am sure he/she will provide you with his/her email address if it is thought to be of benefit to your studies.

The means of access to the Calverley Street Computer labs is not indicated, either on the stairwells, or the lift waiting areas. Because of the indirect access arrangements (i.e. via the library) this can be a problem.

Yes, we completely agree: the signs are definitely in need of a facelift. This not only applies to the computer labs, but to the whole of the Calverley Street Learning Centre. We are looking at this problem, together with our colleagues in the Library, and new signs will be put up as soon as possible.

It is too too too unbearably hot. Please turn the heating down. It makes us brain dead.

All radiators are adjustable. Please feel free to turn the thermostat up or down if you find the temperature unacceptable. There are also opening windows in every lab — if you find them too stiff, please ask for assistance.

Booking of the entire Brunswick Terrace Suite for classes in the evenings should not be allowed — the suite is booked during the day for classes and therefore some parts of the suite should be retained for open access in the evenings at all times.

At both Calverley Street and Beckett Park we have open-access rooms available all the time. Brunswick Terrace, however, is slightly different in that it is just one room. It is sometimes difficult to juggle bookings and open access, but bookings at all sites are only accepted with at least one week’s notice in order that students can schedule their work.

What is happening about the all-night computer suite? Is it going to be a reality? If so when? Is it going to contain email and WWW facilities?

At present we have no plans whatsoever to open an all-night computer suite. As you will appreciate, the only way into our IT labs is via the library, and to make your suggestion viable we would have to staff both the computing area and the Library. At the moment this is not possible, nor does it look possible in the immediate future.

Most of the people are using email to keep in contact with friends who they see all the time and not for work. Email should not be allowed except in the evenings when there are machines free; this would allow people who want to, to work!!

This has been the subject of many comments from students and we are trying various ways of solving the problem. The first of these is to restrict the account of each email user to a specified length of time; once this has been used up, email will not be available. It is therefore up to the individual to make best use of the time. We may also have to reduce the number of simultaneous connections to the system. Unfortunately, we cannot restrict access to be available only in the evenings as we run courses on the subject during the day.

The number of printers per computer at Beckett Park is inadequate.

We now have a total of twenty-five laser printers, including one colour laser printer, for the Beckett Park Learning Centre. Unfortunately, however, we are still waiting for the contractors to finish installing the wiring before we can fully implement them.